Malaysian Firm Offers AI-Based Profiling of Chinese Visitors for Virus

Malaysia's MYEG Services said on Wednesday it had developed a coronavirus risk-profiling system for visitors from China and was offering the artificial intelligence-based service to the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines. From a report: Malaysia has imposed a temporary ban on visitors from Chinese provinces placed on lockdown by the China's government, in a bid to stem the spread of the virus. Malaysia has reported 22 infections, and the Philippines has reported three confirmed cases including one death. MYEG Services Bhd said its system creates a health-risk profile using a person's historical geolocation information and other parameters. MYEG has partnered with Beijing-based travel agency Phoenix Travel Worldwide for the project. The fully-automated system analyses a "vast number of available data points, including visitors' previous known whereabouts as well as heart rate and blood pressure readings crossed-referenced against public transportation ridership and exposure to locations with incidences of infections," MYEG said in a statement to the stock exchange.

surprise...

[nicolaiplum]

I will be shocked, absolutely shocked I tell you, to find out that gambling, no actually I mean arbitrary profiling of Chinese people, has been taking place in Malaysia.

Scam

[schure]

This AI scheme is most likely a scam profiting from the magical appearance of everything AI. Profiling risk when we know so little about the disease is almost impossible.

Re: Scam

[schure]

They can't have a decent training set at this point.

Re:

[hey!]

In principle the thing described is not actually arbitrary. It sounds like they're doing Bayesian calculations based on actual data on where someone has been and actual vital signs to calculate the likelihood someone is a carrier.

The main problem I see with such a system is validating it; by the time you can prove it actually does anything it's either too late or you don't need it anymore. It's not like people who are afraid to go to Chinatown now. They should really be afraid of visiting the financial

AI ??

[ddtmm]

Why is this called AI? It's just a bunch of probability math. There's no "thinking" going on here. Seems like any program that can make a decision based on data is now called AI.

Re:

[aeropage]

Wake me up when an "AI" can respond cogently to the question "What would you do if you were a better AI?".

Re:

[jrumney]

Seems like any program that can make a decision based on data is now called AI.

After about 5 years of "AI" stories on Slashdot, you only just figured this out?